Views From Mexico U.s. Immigration Reform Adds Insult To Injury . . .

December 28, 1986|By Frank Shaffer-Corona , Special to The Sentinel

VERACRUZ, MEXICO — The recent immigration reform in the United States cleary rankles most people south of the border. There is a genuine fear on the part of Mexican officials that the already tense relations between the two governments will deteriorate further, although some would-be immigrants hope for a warm welcome to the land of milk and honey in the north.

The Mexican government, which has long expressed concern about the treatment of its citizens in the United States, sees the newly enacted immigration law in the context of a series of insults and pressures emanating from the Reagan administration and Congress. Officials here do not isolate this piece of legislation from hearings held in May and June by the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western hemisphere. Subcommittee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., charged Mexican officials with corruption, laxity in anti-narcotics efforts and election fraud. Helms' attacks, as well as reports in the U.S. press about corruption in Mexican government and the pressures on Mexico's fragile economy inherent its dealings with its northern neighbor, clearly have stung.

The government is not alone in its feelings. Mexican scholars say that this immigration reform creates a double standard that likely will increase tension between the two countries.

''There is a consensus in Mexico that U.S. policy toward Mexico is an endless, vicious cycle of pressure,'' said historian Lorenzo Meyer.

Samuel I. del Villar, a former adviser to Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid, sees it as a traditional case of putting the blame on the victim and compares the U.S. attitude on immigration with that on drug trafficking. ''In both cases, massive demand from the U.S. population generates a market, for labor and narcotics, that the government in reality protects . . . and that Mexico inevitably satisfies significantly due to our ample border,'' del Villar said. ''In both cases, the U.S. government has made coercion the crux of its policy.''

Most undocumented immigrants from Mexico remain in the United States only temporarily. They fill low-paying jobs where they can often earn as much in a day as they would in a week at home, if there were jobs available. Mexico's unemployment is estimated at 18 percent, and there are no accurate figures on underemployment. Money from these workers sent to their families in Mexico is estimated at least $500 million a year, a much-needed source of hard currency for Mexico's depressed economy.

Despite denials by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization (INS) officials, Mexicans are fearful that the new law will be used as the basis for massive deportations of Mexicans. A similar campaign followed World War II.

Some clever entrepreneurs, however, have run full-page advertisements in Mexican newspapers. The ads offer people living in Mexico the full advantages of the legalization program called for in the reform legislation for those immigrants who can prove that they were living in the United States since 1982.

The Mexican press is replete with stories about the ill treatment received by indocumentados at the hands of the INS and even private paramilitary groups such as Civilian Military Assistance, which is believed in Mexico to be an arm of the Ku Klux Klan.

It will take delicate diplomatic enforcement measures as yet not displayed by U.S. immigration authorities to allay Mexican apprehensions about the new immigration law. It will take a whole new vocabulary in Washington to replace the current tensions with an atmosphere of respect. And it will take a lot of money to alter the economic conditions that have caused the headaches in the first place.